


old ghosts

by m0n0chromium



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Introspection, tracer torb and winston are also there but more background than anything
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-08
Updated: 2017-06-08
Packaged: 2018-11-11 09:49:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11145969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/m0n0chromium/pseuds/m0n0chromium
Summary: Reinhardt returns to Eichenwalde decades later.





	old ghosts

**Author's Note:**

> Part of nb_vint and I's weekly prompt exchange. This week's prompt was "a conversation with a past self."

Tomorrow, they’d retrieve his General’s armor. For tonight- find a place to rest after a long day in the aircraft. No one speaks, not beyond what’s necessary, as they pick out one of the least damaged buildings to set up for the night. The memories, the ghosts, of this town weigh down upon the moss-overgrown cobblestone too heavily for customary chatter. It’s quiet enough to hear the distant rat-tat-tat-tat of a woodpecker carving out a home for itself.

Even in its decrepit state, Reinhardt recognizes the building they choose immediately. How could he not? The sight of the old pub he and his siblings in arms would frequent brings back an old and heavy ache to his chest. The interior is worse—the stillness an uncomfortable contrast against the recollection of bygone laughter. It winds him as easily as if someone had struck him with his own hammer. The others give him space for now. They understand.

Torbjörn begins assembling the battering ram. All the pieces are present and ready for use in the morning, but require assembly. Winston assists, large hands far more skilled and capable than one might expect. Oxton is looking around, her normally fast pace slowed. Everyone else who had responded to the Recall is back at Gibraltar. An important mission is at hand, yes, but not one that requires many people.

Minutes of silence pass, before Oxton pipes up suddenly, from a table she had been inspecting. Her voice cuts through the somber atmosphere. “Did you carve your name into the table, Reinhardt?”

He looks over, thoughts catching up to the present once more and makes his way over to the table, blinking down at, yes, his name, before the correct memory clicks into place. He laughs, big and loud, the noise filling the emptiness of the pub. “That I did!”

A drinking contest with Schmidt, one that Reinhardt had won, but only after downing more local beer than he ever had in his lifetime. He’d carved his name into the table, roaring with laughter, to commemorate his victory (which had seemed so big at the time, no doubt a result of the inebriation) and had stood up. He had promptly fallen backwards, breaking the table behind him. He had to pay for the damages, looking extremely sheepish the next day, but the owner was no less friendly. He relates this tale to Oxton.

Afterwards, he feels less like he’s suffocating. The melancholy weighing down his chest, while it still aches, feels fonder than it had before. Oxton, eyes dancing with mirth, catches on quickly, asking him to tell her more stories of his time here. Reinhardt is happy to oblige.

That’s how the evening is spent, him sharing his happier memories of Eichenwalde. At some point Torbjorn and Winston shifted, turning somewhat towards Reinhardt to listen in as he tells his tales while they work.

The sun sets over long-abandoned buildings, night falls. He doesn’t bother to set up a place to sleep, he knows it’s a lost cause. He opts instead to patrol the town, just in case. If the others see through him, they say nothing, and Reinhardt leaves into brisk night air. There’s no fear of getting lost. Though decades have passed, he’s memorized these broken paths, this bastion graveyard, within his core. It’s just him, his thoughts, and the frantic chirping of crickets now.

He wanders, losing track of the time as the weight settles on his heart again. Better out here, though, than tossing and turning and disturbing the others’ rest while sleep escapes him. Better not to cause them worry. He finds himself following old routes, revisiting places packed with stories and memories. A ruined bakery, the empty home of a friend he had long since lost touch with, a shattered grocery store. Places bustling with the ghosts of familiar faces: many dead, some alive, and others unknown entirely.

A poster, plastered to the outer wall of some store, gives him pause. It’s one of himself. Long, blond hair blowing in the wind, pose tall and inspiring. _Die Crusader Stehen Wache!_ The Crusaders stand guard! Oh, the grief he’d been given by his siblings in arms over it brings a smile tugging at the corners of his lips. Had he ever really been so young?

He looks upon the image of his younger self, for a long while. Brought back to a time where loss was not as familiar as it was now. And oh, the losses he would endure. He’d lost many close friends over the years. Friends he misses every step of the way. Many of them had fallen in this very town. Others would fall later. An organization he’d pour his heart and soul into would force him out and tear itself apart at the seams, with Reinhardt unable to do anything but watch and mourn in its wake.

Yet he can’t bring himself to regret it.

Large fingers reach out, splaying over element-worn paper. No, how could he regret his life? He fought the good fight, hard as he could. He fought for values he believed in, he fought for the lives of others. The fact that he lost friends meant that he had friends to lose in the first place, good men and women he was honored to know. He did not regret it.

He notices, idly, that the sun is beginning to rise.

“Keep going where you’re going, young one.” Reinhardt murmurs to the silent image and turns away. He’d best be getting back.


End file.
